


Monsters under the bed

by probee



Category: NCIS
Genre: Episode: s16e24 Daughters, Episode: s17e01 Out of the Darkness, Gen, I guess it could be speculation but really not, Season/Series 17, it's pretty much au because there's no way this is going to happen on the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probee/pseuds/probee
Summary: Tonight is the night they vanquish the monster forevermore. In more ways than one.





	Monsters under the bed

She’d missed this.  
  
All these years away, in darkened alleys and darker moods, she seldom allowed herself moments to remember all _this_. The hum of the idle photocopier down the hall to the right. The institutional florescence of the overhead lights, which one could feel flickering in the early hours of the morning on day three of a case. The din of collegial chatter amongst their fearless leader’s barked orders. Even the faint smell of stale coffee emanating from the break room while breezing by on a big break.  
  
It was all wrapped in _home_.  
  
She definitely never expected to ever set foot in this place again. It seemed like a lifetime ago, that day she turned in her badge and left with her partner, ending one chapter and beginning another on that spring day. How hopeful she’d been, even in the midst of chaos, because somehow she knew it would turn out alright. They had each other, and finally, she’d realized, that was all she really needed.  
  
What a fool she’d been.  
  
Because the second they stepped off that elevator, everything changed. That line between _you_ and _me_ and _us_. Between _before_ and _after_. Between home, and anything but. Sometimes she wishes she’d known all that at the time, could have turned the clock back and done something, _anything_ to change the course of this albatross that has hung over their heads ever since. Yet she cannot dwell on the _what might have beens_; she is so broken inside still that there is hardly anything left for the regret to tear apart.  
  
Except not on this night.  
  
Tonight is the night they vanquished their monster forevermore. (Correction: _this_ monster. She isn’t naive enough to believe they will always be safe. But for tonight, this is enough.) She has spent years — too many — simultaneously outrunning this beast and staying one step ahead of it, without knowing what it is or what it wants, other than her head and those of her loved ones. The only thing of which she has been certain was that leaving them was the only way to keep them safe.  
Until it wasn’t.  
  
So just as hastily as she’d shuffled off this mortal coil, she reappeared to get this over with, tired of living a life in the shadows while lying in wait for the monster to strike. She supposes some warning may have been justified, but that was never her style, anyway. She has always been a woman of action, proceed first and question later, so ripping off this bandage in one shot was probably for the best anyhow. It also allowed little room for second-guessing. Or reminding herself of how much more pain she left in her wake with every move she’s made.  
  
There will be much time (she hopes) to atone for her sins. Tonight, though, she waits for the fog to lift. Half a decade of flight or fight response courses through her veins, and the pent-up adrenaline has nowhere left to pool. She is no longer prey, yet she cannot quite fathom what it means to finally be free. She has spent a lifetime on the move, and she isn’t sure she knows how to exist without watching her back every second. On the other hand, she doesn’t have a choice _not_ to anymore.  
  
She feels the nerves leave her with every breath she takes, though she cannot bring herself to move from her perch outside of MTAC, her debriefing ended, but not exactly finished. While her friends new and old babble excitedly in the bullpen, revelling in the natural rush of closing a case, she observes the scene from above, an interloper in her own story. She is wistful, the bittersweet memories of many such occasions playing like a carousel in her mind.  
  
“Just like old times, huh?”  
  
She turns to face her mentor, offering a weak smile in return. They’re both leaning over the railing, taking in the sight of a job well done, relieved to be in this very spot, and not six feet underground. Comrades in arms until the very end, it seems, they know each other inside out, even in the silence. She’d forgotten the comfort of his presence, the reassurance that somehow everything can be fixed when they are together, no challenge insurmountable. That his affection does not come with strings attached, waiting to be pulled at opportune times.  
  
(When she became a parent herself, she instantly questioned how anyone could ever not protect their child at all costs, rage rolling in waves within her she continues to force aside. She always knew the pain he carried with him from losing his girls, but the second she held her own daughter, she could not bear to consider how he survived losing his.)  
  
“I heard Torres say something about them heading out to the Hay Adams to celebrate. You should join them.”  
  
“That is a generous offer, but… I have somewhere I need to be.”  
  
She hopes she doesn’t sound ungrateful, but she needn’t worry. He crinkles his eyes and gives her a grin, before leaning in to kiss her temple like he has so many times like these in their past, and she smiles back, assuaged by the gesture.  
  
“Don’t be a stranger, kid.”  
  
“I won’t,” she promises wholeheartedly.  
  
With that, he bounds down the stairs to join the rest of the team, and she sighs deeply as she pads away in the opposite direction towards the elevator. She loves these people, absolutely, but she has no energy left to give and needs to make a stealthy exit. Besides, she has one last mission to accomplish.  
  
—  
  
In the dark of the night, what feels like an eternity later (but is in actuality mere hours), she turns the knob and sneaks into the pitch-black hallway, careful in her movements because she knows the old door creaks at the most inopportune times. It takes her eyes a minute to adjust to the onyx of the scene, with nary a streetlight or passing car around to light her way through the maze. Her instincts kick in and she practices these steps by memory — straight ten paces, around the corner, turn right, next door to the left — and ever so quietly she pushes through the door, avoiding the noisy floorboard just ahead and tiptoeing towards her target.  
  
She slips into the bed, still fully clothed but too exhausted to do anything about it for the moment, seemingly an unsurmountable task after the events that have just transpired. Her head finds the pillow and she just stares for a beat, her mind racing yet completely muddled at once, when it all comes crashing down.  
  
“Is it over?”  
  
She meets his gaze, even in the twilight. She did not expect him to be awake.  
  
“It’s over.”  
  
His sleepy smile makes her heart burst out of her chest, but it is not the only thing tugging at her heartstrings. Her eyes shift to the mound of limbs between them. She thinks she may cry.  
  
“Small Fry must have sensed something was up. She couldn’t sleep in her own bed, so I gave up and let her jump in here tonight. She hasn’t done that for months, even since… the last time.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
As if on cue, the unconscious girl rolls over and nearly whacks her mother in the face with her wayward arm, mouth agape and legs akimbo and taking up the space of someone three times her size.  
  
“She gets that from you, you know.”  
  
The woman stifles a chuckle, but even he can feel the relief washing over her with every passing second. She shifts her weight a little so that she can embrace their bedfellow, wrapping the child in her arms and inhaling her scent. The one she’s longed for with every waking moment and has haunted every dream. Her heart is finally full.  
  
The girl begins to stir slightly, though in a half-dream state, blissfully unaware of the momentousness of the occasion.  
  
“Ima, when do you have to leave this time?” she groggily asks, eyes shut and head lolling.  
  
Deep breath. Moment of truth. “I don’t, motek. Not anymore. I am home. _For good_.” She cannot believe she can actually say that now.  
  
“Okay,” Tali mumbles into her half of their pillow, once more knocked out cold, as if this were just any other night.  
  
As if it were normal for a parent to be a fly-by visitor in her life nobody talks about out loud. As if the months she’s spent without her mother and the years the woman has lived in the underworld are inconsequential. (Later, they will be thankful that these years were just a blip on the radar of her life.)  
  
While the girl sleeps, her mother watches her chest rise and fall, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and overwhelmed at the miracle of this moment, of their existence. Then she lifts her eyes to reach _his_ again, suddenly aware of the next piece of the puzzle slotting into place. He reaches over their daughter to cup his partner’s cheek, tenderly stroking her face, while she smiles into his touch. There will be much to say and logistics to work out, but tonight, they are still. This is all they need.  
  
Her eyes get heavy quickly as whatever reserves she had left in her drain from her body, a sight in itself he has not seen for years, so he inches closer towards his girls (yes, it’s cheesy, but they’re his, dammit) and drapes his arm over them both, completing their circuit and allowing the energy to flow between them all, their unit whole at last. There are no more monsters under their bed.  
  
For the first time in years, she sleeps.  
  
For the first time in years, he sleeps.  
  
Finally, they are home.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is, clearly!
> 
> Just a little bit of speculation fic based on the season 17 promos, except I don't think it really counts as speculation when you know the show will go another direction. I guess this is just a little bit of AU because we're all desperate for these kids to be alright and ride off into the sunset.
> 
> I've had so many different reunion scenarios running in my head for months, this is the only one I was able to get out of my head before the premiere airs! 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Enjoy the season 17 premiere tomorrow folks!


End file.
